Move comes after corporation failed to keep all routes staffed over the holidays, leaving customers without mail for as long as 2 weeks.

Canada Post trucks sit in a parking lot at the Gateway sorting facility in Mississauga last month. The carriers union blames the lack of mail delivery over the holiday period in numerous areas across the country on the corporation failing to provide sufficient staff to cover the routes.

Canada Post imposed forced overtime on some of its employees Wednesday, as the Crown corporation continued its efforts to deliver over two weeks’ worth of mail to previously unstaffed routes throughout the GTA.

The order came the same day Doug Jones, Canada Post’s senior vice-president for delivery and customer experience, told the Star the corporation would improve communication after failing to notify residents of delays in mail delivery over the holidays.

He would not go as far as to offer an apology, even though Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton told radio station Newstalk 1010 earlier Wednesday the corporation was sorry for the lack of notice.

“Looking back at the length of this, we recognize we could have done things differently and I’ve engaged my team to see how we can change the communication process so we do give people a better heads-up when these things happen,” Jones said.

The Star had initially asked for an interview with Canada Post CEO Deepak Chopra to get an explanation for why so many mail routes were left unstaffed in December and early January, leaving anxious and frustrated residents waiting for cheques, bills and Christmas cards.

Chopra was not made available. A request for an interview with Federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, the minister responsible for Canada Post, was also declined.

Many GTA residents complained this week that they had been without mail since just before Christmas. Jones said that delays of a few days were also experienced elsewhere such as in Winnipeg, Regina and Corner Brook, Nfld., due to snow and cold weather.

As for the GTA, Canada Post has maintained that despite its contingency plans, it was caught off-guard by the holiday period ice storm, saying it prompted many of its 3,400 full-time carriers in the area to take unexpected leaves of absence. The bad weather also limited their number of available relief workers, the corporation said.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says the weather had nothing to do with it. It says workers have been forced to take time off due to stress from working longer shifts and routes, and has accused Canada Post of not replenishing its lists of casual workers throughout the GTA.

The union also says there are about 120 routes in its Toronto local that do not have a full-time worker assigned to them, only temporary employees, who don’t always work the same route.

Jones said the corporation wants to “transition” surplus full-time staff in the Scarborough local to fill the Toronto routes.

He said Canada Post beefs up its numbers of relief and casual employees ahead of the holiday season. Relief employees are full-time workers not always assigned to the same route, while casual employees are on-call workers.

This year, he said, there were 1,250 such employees in the GTA, “meaning about one (replacement) for every three letter carriers.”

Canada Post did not provide the Star with the number of absent full-time workers in the GTA over the past two weeks, or the number of replacement employees who came in for work, by press time.

One full-time carrier who has been with Canada Post for 35 years and who wished not to be identified told the Star that weather conditions have never stopped the vast majority of postal workers from doing their job. He said he returned from vacation this week to find two weeks’ worth of mail still at the depot, when it should have been distributed by a relief worker.

Now in catch-up mode, Canada Post imposed forced overtime in “small pockets” of the GTA Wednesday, said spokeswoman Anick Losier.

“It is an option that is imposed infrequently, only after all other available options as outlined in the collective agreement have been exhausted,” she said.

Learie Charles, grievance officer with the union’s Scarborough local, said the timing of the delays was suspect, coming just weeks after Canada Post announced it would be phasing out door-to-door delivery in older urban areas and increasing the price of its stamps.

“It’s from then onward that this has happened. So they must have seen it as a method to prepare the public for what they are going to do with delivery in the future,” he said.

Charles said Canada Post will undoubtedly face public backlash for the delays, but it’s the carriers who will suffer the brunt of it.

“They are the ones being asked why there has been no mail. They’re the ones who the people are complaining to,” he said.

But Jones said that even as Canada Post steps up its parcel delivery strategy, the corporation remains committed to the “largest part of our business”: the delivery of about 4 billion letters a year.

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